Cusack Music releases 20-unit Screamer Fuzz Selenium with vintage rectifiers

June 3, 2022 · 3 sources

Cusack Music built a modified version of its Screamer Fuzz around vintage selenium rectifiers, in a run of 20 pedals offered for sale, according to a June 3, 2022 report on Delicious Audio¹. The report says company owner Jon Cusack sourced the parts while working on a repair for a vintage amplifier and bought the supplier's remaining inventory of 26 pieces¹.

The Screamer Fuzz Selenium combines a selenium rectifier overdrive circuit with the LED fuzz circuit of the Screamer Fuzz V3, with the same layout and signal path as the V3, the maker said¹. The maker said the overdrive runs the signal through a series of plates coated in selenium, each acting as a diode that clips the signal¹. The controls are fuzz, drive, tone and volume, and the pedal has soft switching, custom milled aluminum knobs and a limited edition finish¹. The rectifier is riveted to the side of the enclosure for support, the maker said¹.

Delicious Audio described the result as "a dark and full fuzzdrive with a thick creamy texture," adding that with overdrive and fuzz turned down it can serve as a preamp or tone shaper, and that at higher gain the texture breaks up into a velcro-like fuzz¹. The report says the rectifiers are estimated to be 60+ years old and that each pedal is signed inside by Jon Cusack¹. The maker said it began with 26 parts and enclosures, and that a few enclosures did not turn out and a number of rectifiers did not meet spec, leaving 20 for sale¹. Buyers could select a specific serial number when ordering, according to the report¹.

The report gives no price for the Screamer Fuzz Selenium. A Cusack Music product page for a later pedal, the Project 34, also built around a selenium rectifier, states that the 2021 run of 20 Screamer Fuzz Selenium pedals sold out immediately². That page lists the Project 34 at an MSRP of $240.00². A RockBoard PedalPedia entry for the Project 34 repeats the maker's account of the Screamer Fuzz Selenium run and lists the Project 34 as analog, running on 9V DC, center negative³.